A recent family vacation in Southern California included a day hike in Joshua Tree National Park and an evening dinner at a nearby In-N-Out, a very popular burger chain that you can only find in California and a few other Western states.
Southern California, or SoCal, as people call it sometimes, is very familiar to me and my wife, Michelle. We met in Palm Springs, not far from Joshua Tree, in the late 90s, and lived there for almost five years.
This time we made new memories with our kids and I recorded some in my sketchbook. At the park, our daughter threw sand all over my drawing so it would have “the DNA of the place,” as I like to say when rainfall accidentally dampens my work in Seattle. At the restaurant, however, I didn’t think to add a little ketchup to my pages. Perhaps I should have!